John Muir Quotes

Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.

A man has more character in his face at forty than at twenty - he has suffered longer.

Suffering is also good, it makes a person rich in charachter.

Perhaps, over the years, I have become less immature and more professional.

Man's soul is strengthened by suffering.

It is tough: sometimes the pain that you feel makes you grow.

Suffering can make saints of people as they learn patience, long-suffering and self-mastery.

Hardships make us strong. Problems give birth to wisdom. Sorrows cultivate compassion. Those who have suffered the most will become the happiest.

The beast that bears you fastest to perfection is suffering.

Character isn't developed when we get what we want. Character is developed when we don't get what we want.

I have seen great beauty of spirit in some who were great sufferers. I have seen men, for the most part, grow better not worse with advancing years, and I have seen the last illness produce treasures of fortitude and meekness from most unpromising subjects.

The scar will remain, but it is better for a man to lose both arms than his soul; and these hard years, instead of being lost, may be made the most precious of your lives, if they teach you to rule yourselves.

Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd.

Suffering is a good teacher. It keeps you in its grip until you've learned your lesson.

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential.

When you look back at your own life, you see ... the sufferings you went through, each time you would have avoided it if you possibly could. And yet, when you look at the depth of your character now, isn't a part of that a product of those experiences? Weren't those experiences part of what created the depth of your inner being?

If man could write his own fate, he would have designed his journey to be without obstacles. Yet all obstacles come with valuable lessons designed just for you and only you. Suffering is imposed on us time and again so that one day we would become brave wise masters. That is, a strong being who is confidently aware of their intended direction in life, and fearlessly adding value to the world and their future.

Within ten days thou wilt seem a god to those to whom thou art now a beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the worship of reason.

You choose to go voluntarily into the fire. The blaze might well destroy you. But if you survive, every blow of the hammer will serve to shape your being. Every drop of water wrung from you will temper and strengthen your soul.

I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman.

Now you see how you are, the wisdom mixed in with all the scars.

The weakest man is the one who is able to correct his moral defects, but doesn't take action.

Self-control is the only possible road to character development

Sorrow and suffering make for character if they are voluntarily borne, but not if they are imposed.

Everyone knows that weeds eat out the life of the garden and of the productive fields. It's like that in the building and developing of character. No one knows our own faults and tendencies better than we do ourselves, so that it is up to each one of us to keep the weeds out, and to keep all growth vigorous and fruitful.